Buying a house was stressful and the paperwork was tedious and so on, but it wasn’t really that hard (partially because we were lucky, and partially because we had a lovely agent, and partially because she steered us away from foreclosures and short sales “if you want to have a house before 2011.”). Everything ticked along quite nicely, and everyone was competent.
Our utilities, on the other hand… GAH.
-We have had no postal service for three days, perhaps not coincidentally matching the time when we filled out the address change form. WHICH WE TOLD THEM NOT TO EXECUTE UNTIL 11-20. What about this do they not understand?
-I have spent at least two hours in at least five calls with Verizon over the last week, trying to get them to switch my service and it’s STILL not done. I asked to switch our phone line and DSL. They could do the phone but not the DSL; I had to call a separate number for that. Also, I had to talk to someone else about long distance. WHICH I HAVE NEVER HAD WITH VERIZON. They switched me to that person, then hung up on me. So I called back. That person said she couldn’t help me and to call back during business hours. Then I called the DSL line, who said they could switch the DSL, but two weeks later than the phone service. Okay, whatever. Then Verizon called me telling me that they needed third-party verification on my phone order. Okay, so I called them. The first time they hung up on me. The second time they switched me to the third party correctly, but then she asked me to confirm that Verizon was going to be my long distance provider. WHICH IT IS NOT. So now I have to call them back and tell them they screwed that up. I guess I’m grateful to the SEC for requiring third party verification for Verizon trying to screw me, though.
I’m this close from canceling my entire Verizon account. I’ve been spending the last fifteen minutes looking up Cox… anyone have any good/bad experiences with them?
-To be fair, the other utilities seem to have been fine.
I thought you might be experiencing the same problem with utilities that I always have - “I’m sorry, MA’AM, only your husband can make any changes on this account.” I always feel like I’ve slipped back about 50, 60 years when they pull that shit on me.
Yeah, getting the utilities changed over and hooked up (and all the address changes, which I am STILL not finished) is a huge pain in the ass, on top of all the moving hassles.
As the person who takes care of all the bills/utilities, etc. this is not a throwback, this is to ensure that they are talking with the person that they are billing or that the person they are billing has given this person permission.
They do this to my husband all the time. Often, I am quite willing to give him permission to change the account. However, I am happy that he cannot affect others (there have been some interesting contract changes to our mobile phones when he had access for example).